Superman: Man of Steel, Vol 1: Origins Redux
by Benjamin J Brown
Summary: A redux of my earlier "Superman: Man of Steel Vol 1". After a the cataclysmic expansion of Krypton's sun is caused by his childhood friend, scientist Jor-El, sends his son Kal-El to Earth to live on. Found by Jonathan and Martha Kent, the boy becomes Clark Kent, growing up in Smallville and becoming Earth's champion; Superman. I own nothing.
1. The Last Days of Krypton

**Okay, so, unlike with the Redux of** _ **The Bat Vol. 1,**_ **This fic's redux is more of a rewrite. The plot will be largely the same, with a similar level of detail to the redux being seen on** _ **The Bat**_ **but will differ in a few points. But enough about that. R &R, please, no flames, B.**

 **...**

 **Krypton, 1985**

Jor-El walked around the large, crystalline lab. He'd recently returned from a trial going on, overseen by Krypton's ruling council. It wasn't one he was comfortable with being one of the character witnesses on, given his position as a childhood friend of the accused.

However, Kryptonian law called for such witnesses to be present, and as the majority of the man's acquaintances had served with him in the military, it was Jor'El's place, as the sole remaining person who'd known the man, Dru-Zod, now known simply as General Zod, outside of members of his military unit, Jor-El was the only witness who could be called.

He moved over to his computer terminal, moving crystals about until a holographic projection of Krypton appeared, a graph of the different radiations present appearing beside it. Notably, the output of radiation from Krypton's sun was massively disproportionate to it's norm. Jor-El couldn't believe his eyes.

When he'd been told he was to present testimony on Zod's character, and that his friend was being tried for tampering with the solar control matrix used to provide continual power to Krypton's cities, such as Argo and Kandor, Jor-El had hardly believed it. Of course, the lack of time in between had left him little time to do anything but go and visit the hospital where his wife, Lara, was currently resting, preparing for the birth of their son.

Now, it looked as if the accusations could be true. Someone _had_ manipulated the solar control matrix. This after Zod had called for a vote of no confidence in the leadership of the council; at first, Jor-El had assumed this trial was some kind of political reprisal from a perturbed rival. Now it looked like the only reprisal had come from Zod.

"See anything interesting, Jor-El?" Came a voice from behind him, Jor-El turning to see Zod stood there, the light reflecting of his dark hair and beard, wearing his fitted black bodysuit, his family's crest on the chest, black robes falling over it, Jor-El instinctively shutting down the hologram and moving away from Zod "What's the matter, Jor? You seem frightened of something."

"Zod... You shouldn't be here, the trial is ongoing..." Jor-El said with a hard gulp "I'm asking you, as your friend, for your own sake, please leave."

"I intend to, Jor-El, don't worry." Zod said, approaching Jor-El and clapping a hand on his shoulder "I just wanted to thank you, for what you said in the tribunal. You were very complimentary."

"We've been friends for years." Jor-El said with a forced smile "I was hardly going to agree that you're a psychotic madman with homicidal tendencies like they claimed. You may have a temper, but you've never been insane to my knowledge."

"Exactly." Zod said with a smile "I just thought I'd come and thank you myself. It appears that, thanks to your testimony, I'm to be acquitted."

"That's good news." Jor-El lied "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and see Lara. The baby's due soon."

Jor-El began to walk out. As he was about to reach the door, he felt a sharp blow to the back of his legs, taking him to the floor. He looked up, to see Zod stood over him, a long, silver staff in his hands.

"You know, I'd hoped you would've joined me when I'd tried to take control of the council." Zod said simply "Your death is regrettable. However, I recognised those readouts. They're the same ones my advisor came up with. Before I lobotomised him. Couldn't have him telling people what I was planning. Still, a man of his strength? He'll make an excellent grunt. Wherever we finally decide to settle."

"Zod... You... Why?" Jor-El said, unsure what to ask first "Why are you doing this? Why destroy Krypton?"

"Don't you see?" Zod said, standing up and tossing the staff aside "Krypton as we know it died long ago! These bureaucrats running the council now, they have put in place a decadent lifestyle for the ruling classes, but the people that fall into those classes are decreasing in number daily. They removed me and my people from that lifestyle to provide more for themselves, whilst taking from my men, from my wife and child! Don't you see, Jor-El? This isn't about me; it's about _them!"_

"And what of my wife, of Lara?" Jor-El asked as he stood, subtly picking up a crystal shard from the floor and putting it behind his back "Or of my son; you would kill Kal-El to save your men?"

"I would kill _all_ of Krypton's sons to save my men!" Zod spat, beginning to advance on Jor-El, picking him up by the throat "Starting with you. Good bye, old friend."

Before Zod could do or say more, Jor-El swiped across with the shard, slashing down over Zod's right eye, causing Zod to drop Jor-El and clutch at his face in pain. Jor-El ran out of the lab. He just had to make it, just a few more feet.

As he reached the foyer, Zod caught up to him, tackling him to the ground and flipping him onto his back, both of Zod's hands at Jor-El's throat. He felt himself slowly slipping into unconsciousness, the last thing he saw being Zod being wrestled off of him by the security of the facility.

...

Jor-El stood in the stands of the tribunal. It was the day of sentencing, and Jor-El had been dreading it; there was a lack of actual victims for Zod to be sentenced by, as was customary under Kryptonian law. As Zod had tried to murder him in front of witnesses three weeks before this hearing, Jor-El had been informed that it fell to him to sentence Zod and his people.

He looked over the three. Zod's injury had been tended to eventually, but had left a ghastly scar over his eye; apparently, he'd been lucky to retain vision in it. Stood beside him, at around a foot taller, his head shaved with signs of tampering with his brain, was Non; once a great scientist, and one of Jor-El's partners in the development of an advanced AI, before the project had been abandoned, now reduced to nothing more than an ape. Finally, to Zod's right, was a red haired woman, Faora. Zod's wife.

Their son had been taken from them, put into protective care. Having seen his own son born less than a day before that event, having witnessed it, Jor-El could understand Faora's cries of anguish. However, as enthralled to Zod as Faora was, their son was not; the boy had been terrified of his father, of the monstrosity he had become. Jor-El only regretted that they hadn't been able to stay Zod's hand from the beatings the boy had received upon his decision to become a scientist rather than a soldier like his parents.

"Come, Jor-El." Zod's words snapped Jor-El out of his thoughts, reminding him what it was time for "Tell us you intend to kill us."

"No, Zod." Jor-El said _"You_ are the killer. I will not sentence you to our fate. I hereby sentence you to the Phantom Zone, there to live for all eternity."

"And what of our son?" Faora spat "What of our boy?"

"Lor-Zod has committed no crime." Jor-El said "Therefore, he cannot be sentenced for any."

"You sentence the boy to death but not his parents." Zod said, glaring at Jor-El "I will see you burn for this, Jor-El. You and your Kal-El!"

Jor-El turned and walked out, not watching as the Phantom Zone projector was brought in. He didn't need to see his former friend being sent to a timeless desert with no end to it's lands in sight. He wasn't sending Zod there to end his existence.

He was sending him there to spare him it. He had only one final task before he began working on his project.

He approached the court bailiff, pulling him aside. He paused for a moment before speaking.

"I have request." Jor-El said "Send the boy to the Zone. Allow him the chance to be with his family. Allow him a chance to live past what his father has done."

"I can't do that." The bailiff said, pausing "I'll try. That's the best I can do."

"Thank you." Jor-El said, putting a hand on the man's shoulder with a smile.

He hoped that, even if he couldn't earn his friends' forgiveness, he could spare the child the cataclysm that was coming.

...

Jor-El walked into his lab, finding Lara sat in a seat beside a spherical crib, watching over the baby inside. He walked over, looking at the boy, a single, dark curl visible on his head.

"Are you really going to do it?" Lara asked "Are you really going to send him away? To live with _primitives?"_

"They aren't so different to how the people of Krypton were a handful of centuries ago." Jor-El said, pausing "However, no matter how good, or bad, as the case is with some of them, they may be, it is not the people that caused me to choose that world."

Jor-El manipulated controls, causing the image of a green and blue world to appear in holographic form above the crib.

"It orbits a yellow star. His cells will drink it's radiation, become a living solar battery." Jor-El said "He will be near indestructible, with strength beyond what he can imagine, and speed to match. He will fly in the skies as easily as he runs through the fields."

"And if they try to exploit that?" Lara asked "They'll be terrified of him, they'll try to make him some kind of weapon! They're barbarians!"

"Having seen what some of those close to us are capable of recently, I question if we are so much better." Jor-El said finally as a ring shaped ship with a pointed front section was raised out of the floor "It's time, Lara. He has to go now if he's to be safe from the solar expansion Zod has set into motion."

"He'll be alone." Lara said, concern in her voice "How can you let that be?"

"He'll never be alone." Jor-El said, removing a crystal from his robe and setting it down in an open compartment of the ship as machinery lifted the crib, moving it into a waiting hole in the centre "I've downloaded the entire sum of Krypton's knowledge into that crystal, to be activated when it is. The AI interface is my most advanced work. It will keep him safe."

"How can you know that?" Lara asked "How can you know it won't be perverted like BRAINIAC was by the military?"

It was true. Jor-El and Non's creation, the BRAIN InterActive Construct, or BRAINIAC, had been taken by the military and perverted into a devastating weapon. It had ceased use under Zod's regime, and been sent out into space, to drift amongst the stars.

This time, however, he had foreseen such a possibility and made counter measures; the AI would self delete if used for military purposes, and would respond only to Kal-El unless otherwise instructed. On top of it all, Jor-El knew the AI would keep his son safe as it was based on his own neural patterns. Everything he knew, every experience, was in the AI. It would love Kal-El as if he were it's own son.

"Because I would." Jor-El finally spoke "It's programmed to act as I would, to teach him as I would."

"And if he were to want his mother's opinion?" Lara said, apparently catching Jor-El's meaning "What then?"

"The database contains your own neurological patterns." Jor-El finally spoke "He could fashion a second AI using the first as a base pattern. I prepared for every eventuality."

The top of the capsule was lowered over the crib, the ship beginning to rotate into position for launch. He keyed in the final preparation controls, before pressing one to be allowed to speak into the craft.

"Kal-El... I'm sorry we won't be there to see you take your first steps, to make sure you are protected from any harm, however unlikely it may be." He said "Know that we will always love you, my son. Good bye. And good luck."

He swallowed hard as he inserted the final crystal into the console, the ship firing it's thrusters and launching out of the open ceiling of the lab and into the red sky above. He had done all he could for his son.

What happened next would be out of his hands.

 **...**

 **Hope you like this opening guys, it was important to me that the final days of Krypton be present to some degree in this fic. We won't be seeing kid Clark here, instead getting straight to teen Clark. How the Kents found him will come up, but his life, and what he does with it, won't begin until then. Plus, it gives a more entertaining and less cliché perspective than super baby haha. R &R, please, no flames. B.**


	2. Secret Origins Part One

**Smallville, Kansas, 1999**

Clark Kent walked out of the doors to Smallville High. He'd just finished his first week, and the fourteen year old was already bored of it. He heard someone walking up behind him, turning around to see a boy his age who stood about a head shorter than the admittedly lanky Clark, with dirty blonde hair and wireframe glasses.

"You decided not to go try out for the team then?" The boy asked, smirking "Clark, come on, you completely dominated when you played in middle school. Why wouldn't you want to keep up that streak now?"

"My Dad asked me not to." Clark said with a sigh "You know how he gets, Pete. He's just looking out for me."

"How?" Pete asked indignantly "By keeping you from the glory, the parties and the girls? I don't call that looking out for you, Clark. I call it trying to make you a monk."

Clark half laughed. Pete didn't know about Clark, about what he could do. He was fast, and strong. His mother and father never really spoke about how or why he could lift a pickup truck as easily as most kids his age lifted a Playstation, or outrun the train to Metropolis. His mother just told him it was part of who he was, and re-assured him that they loved him, not because of what he could do, not because of how easily he could get all the chores on the farm done within an hour of getting home from school, but in spite of that.

His father, on the other hand, was more than a little cautious. It had taken Clark nearly all of his middle school career to convince his Dad to let him try out for the football team. Part of him considered trying out for the team at Smallville High in spite of what his father had told him about keeping his head down.

Unfortunately, Clark Kent had always been a bit of a boy scout. He'd never actually even told a lie, not knowingly anyway. He'd omitted information before, sure, but then, most people would probably omit the fact that the red and blue blur that had been reported at the Smallville Savings and loan the day it had been broken into had been them, instead opting to say they'd been around the area that day but didn't know exactly what time.

"I've got to get home." Clark finally said "I promised Dad I'd help him put the new fence up in the back field. I'll see you later, Pete."

"Okay, be that way." Pete said, nodding to the blue Ford Escort by the entrance "Dad got me my car for my Birthday. You need a ride?"

"No thanks." Clark said, smirking knowingly to himself "I fancy a bit of a run."

"It's your funeral." Pete said with a small laugh "But hey, if you want to run five miles after school, who am I to stop you!"

"Exactly. Happy Birthday." Clark said, clapping Pete on the shoulder before turning and walking away, tossing back "See you later, Pete."

Clark began running at what could be considered normal speed for a kid his age, holding a hand up in recognition as Pete drove by, honking the horn as he did. Clark waited for Pete to be out of sight, checking around him before speeding up into a blur of red and blue.

...

Martha Kent stood in the kitchen in her and her Husband, Jonathan's house. She'd just finished baking some double chocolate chip muffins, just the way their son, Clark, liked them. Jonathan tended to berate her for spoiling the fourteen year old, but she'd had left over cake batter from the cake she'd made for Clark's best friend Pete's fifteenth birthday, so had decided to give Clark a treat.

As she set the scorching metal tray with the capes on it down on the counter, removing the oven mits she wore, there was a rush of air as Clark slowed to a halt in the kitchen, making a B line for the muffins.

"Clark, they've just come out" she began, Clark picking up one of the muffins and quickly dropping it, putting the finger and thumb that had made contact with the hot cake into his mouth "the oven. Are you okay, sweetie?"

"Yeah, it just stings a little." Clark said, shaking his hand in the air "Where's Dad?"

"In the barn, working on that old car of his." Martha said, shaking her head "Show me your hand."

"It's fine, Mom." Clark said with a small laugh "Barely felt it."

"Clark Kent, I am your mother and you will do as you are told!" She said sternly "Hand. Now!"

"Fine." Clark said, showing his mother his hand "See? Not even a mark."

"Well, go run it under the tap anyway, just in case." She replied "I know, you've always been a bit more durable than other kids, but I'm still going to worry when you get hurt."

It was true; Clark remembered when he was ten and he'd fallen from the upper level of the barn straight down onto the concrete floor. He'd had a couple of bruises and a few scrapes but, shockingly, not a single broken bone. The paediatrician who'd seen him had said it was a miracle. As he'd got older, he'd got more durable; the previous week, he'd had the tractor his Dad had been working on fall off of the car lift and straight down onto him. He'd only had a few bruises afterwards, which was more than could be said for the tractor.

"I'll be fine." Clark said, kissing his mother on the forehead before walking out of the door and out towards the barn.

As he reached the barn and walked inside, he saw his father lying on one of his old skateboards, under an old orange mustang, held eight feet in the air by a pneumatic car lift on each rear wheel arch, and the front bumper. Jonathan poked his head out, his usually greying brown hair having flecks of black in it from working under the car.

"Can you pass me that wrench Clark?" He said, pointing over to a large wrench in the corner "The front axel is a little loose."

"Sure." Clark said, moving over to the indicated tool and picking it up "Hey, you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Jonathan asked, before the front car lift groaned, beginning to collapse.

Clark sped to the front of the car as all three lifts gave out. The back end hit the ground hard, whilst the front end, currently directly over Jonathan, was held by Clark over his head. His dad scrambled out, observing the sight in front of him as Clark gently set the car down.

"That looked like it should've been a cover on one of your old comic books." Jonathan said with a small chuckle, turning around and gasping "Oh boy."

"Oh boy what?" Clark asked, turning and seeing Pete stood in the door way, looking shocked "Pete?"

"Clark?" Pete said, his tone matching his expression "How did you catch that car?"

...

Clark sat in the living room of his house. Pete was sat across from him, a soder cola in his hand. Martha had taken Jonathan up to the hospital to make sure he hadn't been injured by the car. Pete had seen it all. Apparently, he'd just pulled up at the farm to pick up his cake and had seen Clark walk into the Barn, so he'd followed to say hi. Instead, he was greeted by Clark super speeding to the front of his father's car and catching it like a basketball.

"Pete, listen, I wanted to tell you, but-" Clark began.

"Then why didn't you?" Pete cut him off "Don't get me wrong, I get it. You were worried I'd think different of you. Hell, I'm terrified right now. What else can you do? Breath fire? Shoot ice from your eyes?"

"Not as far as I know." Clark replied with a sigh "Now you get why my Dad doesn't want me trying out for the team. I've always been stronger than everyone else, but then, this summer just gone, the speed showed up. You combo that with the fact that I've got skin about as hard as a rock, if I went out on that field, if I lost control for a second, someone could get hurt, or killed."

"But if you didn't, you could dominate." Pete said, smirking "I know, I get it, it's a valid excuse. Just tell me one thing?"

"Anything." Clark said, glad to finally be able to talk to his friend about things "What do you want to know?"

"How'd you end up like this?" Pete asked "How did Clark Kent become a man of steel?"

Clark froze. He didn't know the answer. It had just _happened_ as he'd got older. Of course, he'd heard of some strange things over the years. The boy a couple of years older than Clark who'd claimed when his Mother was killed a few years ago and his Father arrested for it that a yellow and red lightning storm in his living room had done it, or the man with wings who had shown up in the Egyptian desert to rescue the archaeologist who'd been stranded out there after a sand storm.

None of them matched him though. He'd never seen any killer lightning storms, nor could he fly. Even if he could, he was terrified of heights; he could never imagine himself _choosing_ to fly anywhere.

"Earth to Clark?" Pete's comment snapped Clark out of his musings "Been off on some other planet?"

"That'd be ridiculous." Clark said "I was just thinking. I don't have a clue how to answer your question."

"I figured you wouldn't." Pete said "Hey, didn't your Dad always tell you to stay away from the storm shelter in the back field?"

"Yeah." Clark said "Something about how it used to be a fallout shelter and it wasn't safe. Why?"

"Well, maybe any hunches your Dad has are in there." Pete said with a grin "Come on, Clark. Let's go live a little."

...

Clark and Pete reached the storm shelter. It was an old, concrete building, about five metres by five metres. Of course, it extended underground, and ran pretty much the entire back hundred feet of the field. Clark hated to admit it, but Pete was right; if his Dad were hiding any theories, he'd be able to do it there. But why would he?

They approached the doors, Clark reaching for the handle. It was locked. He looked at Pete, who simply smiled and nodded to the lock. Clark sighed, before Jerking the handle hard, hearing the lock break. He pulled the door open, finding some resistance from the rusted door.

They walked into the shelter, Clark flicking the switch on the wall as they did. The lights flickered on, revealing a dusty shelter. It was clear no one had been in there for a long time. A _very_ long time, at least a decade. There was dust and cobwebs everywhere.

As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Clark collapsed, hitting his head against something hard and feeling a sharp pain. He touched his fingers to his forehead, his hands shaking as he looked at his hand.

Blood. His blood. He hadn't seen it in years. He struggled to pick himself up, putting his hand on the object he'd hit his head on. Pete, meanwhile was totally gobsmacked at the object.

It was silver, and mostly spherical, with a point on the front. On the front section was a red pentagon with a stylised S inside it, yellow breaking up the outline of the letter. Clark however, was more concerned with the pain he was feeling as his hand moved along the object, touching a glowing green rock wedged into the object.

He screamed in pain, feeling a burning sensation on his hand where it touched the rock. Pete finally snapped out of his trance, running over to Clark. He grabbed his friend, trying to move him. As he did, Clark fell back to the floor, beginning to convulse violently.

"Oh god, Clark!" Pete yelled "Oh man, oh man, oh man!"  
"Oh man is right!" Came a voice from the top of the stairs, Pete turning to see Jonathan Kent stood at the top of the stairs "Help me get him out of here. Then me, you and him are going to have words."

 **...**

 **So, here we have it. I chose this point to start adolescent Clark's life because it is a big life event for him. Plus, I felt one of my biggest crimes previously was the under utilisation of some of the characters from Clark's youth i.e. the Kents, Pete and Lana. So, I wanted to start remedying that in the redux. R &R, please, no flames. B.**


End file.
